Institutional Repository as a Knowledge Management Tool for the Enhancement of Library Visibility in the 21st Century: A Case of Midlands State University

Introduction

Institutional Repositories are digital libraries in which institutions deposit their academic research output. Lynch (2003) as quoted by Sheeja (2012) describes an institutional repository as a set of services that a university offers to the members of its community for the management and dissemination of digital materials created by the institution and its community members. The content that is deposited into the repository is determined by the policy that is crafted by the library hence the differences in resources on repositories of different institutions. Overall, the resources found on these digital libraries contain information apropos to the parent organization or institution. Russell et al. (2016) note that institutional repositories are increasingly common in research libraries, but each has a distinct scope specific to its own institutional mission. An institutional repository has become a critical hub of information resources in the 21^st century as has been witnessed by the huge number of libraries establishing these digital libraries. Blankenship and Haines (2008) note that universities in growing numbers have since established institutional repositories to house a wide variety of locally produced materials. Blankenship and Haines (2008) further state that, in a survey of Association of Research Libraries, member libraries in January 2006, 43% of the eighty-seven respondents reported having an operational institutional repository, with 35% planning for one by 2007. Most libraries are establishing institutional repositories so that clients have unlimited remote access to the resources. The harvesting and storing of resources on the institutional repository form part of the knowledge management practices and the establishment of these institutional repositories on the public domain constitute to the visibility of the library. The main objectives of this chapter were:

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  To find out how the institutional repository was being used as a Knowledge Management tool

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  To establish the strategies put in place to harvest research for uploading onto the institutional repository

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  To find out how resources on the institutional repository enhanced the library visibility

Institutional Repositories As A Knowledge Management Tool

Firestone (2001) in Sheeja (2012) defined knowledge management as a process where organizations have formulated ways in the attempt to recognize and archive knowledge assets within the organization that are derived from the employees of various departments or faculties an in some cases, even from other organizations that share the similar area of interests or specialization. University libraries establish institutional repositories in a bid to harvest all research done by resident authors in order to proffer an enabling environment for researchers to share knowledge remotely on a platform that allows for unified access. When creating an institutional repository, a library does not only create an electronic archive and end there but it also takes into account strategies that ensure that there is consistency of metadata across the entire repository and that there is authority control and complex controlled vocabulary. Hakopov (2016) points out that a modern digital information repository, apart from serving its direct purpose, may assist users in a much broader way. Combined with expert classification systems like ontologies and powered by modern semantic technology, Hakopov (2016) notes that it is more than just an electronic archive, but rather forms a complete knowledge organization system.